Quilt No.54RO - Robyn Oliver

Robyn Oliver
Owner: 
Robyn Oliver
Location: 
NSW South East
Maker
Maker: 
Unknown
Made in
ITALY
Date: 
Unknown
Description: 
Wholecloth quilt, brown (tan) sateen both sides. Edges turned in and finished with fine running stitch. Hand quilted, simple cross hatched design with two linear borders. Has had flower shaped hole cut from the centre of one side. 5cm thick.
2290 x 1350mm
History: 

Purchased from the estate of Erice Zilliotto (nee Barratto) Griffith NSW by the present owner.

Story: 

Erice Zilliotto (nee Baratto) was born in 1913 in Cavaso, Treviso, Italy. She could machine knit by the time she was 11. Later she moved to Rome where she had a machine knitting business at home, employing 2 - 3 girls. She knitted for nuns at the Vatican. Around 1962 she came to Australia on holiday, met her husband in Wollongong, and they moved to Griffith. There she did knitting by private order, and produced some fine courtelle suits and dresses. Her mother, born in 1893, was also a machine knitter. Her sister Bianca also learned to machine knit, not at home, but from the monastery.
Angela and Erice Zilliotto were the first and second wives of the same man. They came from the same town in Italy and their quilts were found in the same house in Griffith.
[Robyn Oliver 1998]

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